


I guess I owe it to the timing of companions

by Julx3tte



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, cupboards
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-30
Updated: 2018-01-30
Packaged: 2019-03-11 11:57:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13523784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Julx3tte/pseuds/Julx3tte
Summary: "...I survived the year at all."Everything settles, and Harry never has a cupboard in his home again





	I guess I owe it to the timing of companions

**Author's Note:**

> I ran into this post again and couldn't fall back asleep early in the morning.
> 
> https://julxr4.tumblr.com/post/170303312866/sageayanna-setissma-headcanon-when-harry
> 
> title via This House - Japanese Breakfast

The first time it happens, Hermione’s just gotten back from Australia. Harry’s barely past debilitated. It’s his third trip out of the Burrow since May 2nd. The first was to Godric’s Hollow, to a cemetery plot with three headstones. The second was… nowhere really, just past the borders of the Burrow, flying just behind Ginny on a broom.

This time he’d resolved to find a new place, even if he didn’t live in it yet. A plan for recovery, a place to study for the Aurors, and a way to get out of Molly and Arthur’s hair hair while they battle their own grief.

Hermione and Ron apparate in as Harry’s gotten back to the living room. It’s a small flat, two rooms and a bath and a half on two floors. Harry still can’t quite cast a Patronus yet, so he tells Ron to send one before they came. A silver dog flies through the bedroom and Harry walks downstairs, warming up some tea.

He’s already let the flat, but it’s nearly empty. Just a teapot, some tea, a muggle toaster, and a couch. Later he’ll ask Ginny to help him fill it out, but for now he’s just treating it like a safehouse to escape to.

Hermione walks in, scans the room, lashes her wand out at the staircase with a cry, “reducto” and half the staircase explodes - shatters really. Ron doesn’t move a muscle, but Harry spills his tea when he dodges a piece of wood flying at him.

“What was that for,” he asks, half amused and half alarmed.

“Cupboard.” Hermione says this without meeting his eye. She takes a half-step towards Ron, eyes locked at the space under the staircase. “Never again.”

Ron does his best to translate.

“What she means is, she needs a bookshelf when we move in.”

“What do you mean, move in?” Harry asks, confused. There’s a tear in his eye from Hermione’s last statement and Ron’s blurry, but he runs a hand by to wipe his eyes.

“Before I go back,” Hermione says. “And after I finish, and you and Ron are working. You were going to ask us weren’t you? Tonight?”

Harry puts his tea down and walks forward carefully and takes his friends into his arms. He casts a Patronus that night, and a stag wakes up Ginny in the middle of the night, and Hermione later as they switch rooms just before dawn.

* * *

The second time, Harry and Ginny’ve moved in together. It’s a spacious flat, and the staircase comes up to a little landing, a balcony, and a makeshift attic-office that they sometimes use to study manuals and write reports.

Ron walks in as they’re unpacking and asks, “you had to pick one with a staircase, mate?”

Ginny gives Harry a questioning look, and Harry just laughs. “It almost feels like a tradition a this point doesn’t it?”

By the time Hermione walks in, Ron’s got a pile of boards, a can of paint, and a tin of nails ready to go.

“Sorry, got held up at a meeting. What’s those for?” she asks as she smiles at Ron.

“You’re going to blow it up aren’t you love? I thought we’d make a drinks cabinet this time, since Harry doesn’t have many books.”

Hermione grins wide and shoes Ginny and Harry out of the way to inspect the cupboard. The door is newer, and the inside opens to the right and up, filled with dust and a small, naked lightbulb.

This time she’s more careful - she vanishes the door and the light, casts a spell to reveal the support beams, and chooses an intricate charm that pushes the wood covering the rest of the staircase upwards, twisting them into ornaments by the guardrails.

Ron steps in and begins to hammer - with a spell he’s practiced until perfect the night before - nails and boards into place.

When he’s done, Hermine reaches into her bag and pulls out a white strip. “LED lights,” she says. “Muggle electronics, they change colors if you set them right.” She glues them into place around the square diamonds that now fill the space under the stairs.

Harry goes out to get a bottle of wine, and Ginny unloads different muggle protein drinks that she and Hermione found.

They drink and unpack the rest of the night, and stand on the balcony and think about how much the world has changed.

* * *

The third time, Ginny’s pregnant and sitting on the couch while the trio do the work. Harry’s asked them to help him rebuild Godric’s Hollow, and they have, piece by piece, wall by wall.

It’s an ambitious project, and they have to pause often for Harry to place himself there, 24 years ago. How did Lily and James walk through the house, and how did he totter through on stumbling legs?

They do away with Harry’s old bedroom, and that entire side of the house becomes a hallway; shift the walls around so that it becomes a new house for new memories and new stories. There’s a big blueprint hung up in the living room, and the kitchen is threadbare.

“We need a staircase,” Harry says. It’s a one bedroom house.

Ginny rolls her eyes, and Ron snorts, but Hermione’s ecstatic. “We can charm it and have it lead to the treehouse.”

“We don’t have a treehouse,” Harry says, confused.

“Not yet,” Ron chimes in. “But that can be next.”

Ginny decides to sit out and puts her feet up on the couch, orange juice in hand.

So, they build a staircase. It doesn’t go anywhere, and it’s a pain to move ceiling beams out of the way, but it gets done between the three of them. Hermione moves the wood, of course, and Harry casts a revealing charm to make the space transparent. Ron stars from the top and adds a the flight of stairs.

They go outside - Ginny hovering on her broom - and charm a tree to spread its branches and add a house there, too.

Later, they have their friends come draw on the stairs - singing their names, and drawing stags and dogs and wolves. They go inside the house and drink and charm it to look like the Hogwarts ceiling - changing every night. They add a mini Marauder’s map on the wall that only shows Godric’s Hollow.

Later, Teddy gets the first test run, passing through up the stairs and through a wall, and back down. He asks for a slide to get from the treehouse to the bottom of the stairs, and Harry charms it for his birthday.

Later, a small James Sirius realizes that he’s never been up the stairs before. He’s had some practice at Grammy Weasley’s, and feels bold enough to try. He makes up two, slips down one, and resolves to make it up all 12 after a few tries and finds… a wall.

It’s disappointing, because his Dad and Mom never mentioned what was up here and he thinks it should be a great secret. So he comes all the way up to touch the wall and prepares to head down, except when he touches the wall his hand goes right through it.

Weird. Hm.

James Sirius Potter has only known one way of exploring, so he takes a few steps back and runs straight through the wall and into… a new room.

He’d been in the treehouse before, but never the second floor. There’s no stairs, and he can see it’s bigger than he’s explored because of the second set of windows, so as he walks around this new room, he realizes that’s where he must be. He runs to a window and sees the back of the house, and the yard where he left his toy broom.

Sunlight’s gleaming through - it’s just morning, and he slipped away while his parents went to get ready and he said he’d be okay watching some telly - and he gives the room a big look.

On one wall are giant murals of a dog, a stag, and a wolf. They’ve seen him and are moving around to get his attention, and James Sirius realizes those are the animals from the story Dad tells him.

On another wall is a map. Two dots - labeled Mom and Dad, if James could read - are both in the bathroom together like they’d said, but the treehouse isn’t part of the map and he can’t find himself.

There’s nothing on the third wall yet, but he looks up and sees clouds, and he lays there a little bit, watching them dance, and his eyelids get heavier and he falls asleep.

Harry and Ginny make it out of the shower a few minutes later than expected, get changed, and realize their son is nowhere to be found. They search the house frantically before noticing a bib by the bottom of the staircase, and give each other a glance. They enter the treehouse and find James Sirius watched over by Padfoot, Moony, and Prongs, who nod at the pair as they enter.

Years later, James Sirius takes his brother up the stairs and into the secret treehouse. It’s Albus’ birthday, and Ginny suggests that James give him a gift that he loves.

And years after, he and Al take a curious Lily Luna up there when their parents are angry at them, wrap themselves up in a blanket they’d seen on the floor, and worry for an hour when their parents come in and don’t see them.

Harry gets a scolding that night for leaving the Invisibility cloak lying about, and the kids get ice cream the day after.

* * *

In another world, James and Lily Potter move into their house and take stock of what they find. There’s a room on the first floor that they turn into an office, and they section off half the living room for toys so that little Harry can play.

Sirius and Remus come to visit. Sirius turns into a dog, has Harry ride on his back around the house and out the back yard, and when he turns back, complains that there’s nowhere for him to curl up as a dog.

James tells him to deal with it, but Harry takes his godfather’s side and chants “CUDDWE CO-NAH” until Lily laughs at James enough to tell him to do something. Remus looks around a moment, points to the door under the stairs, and asks “what’s under there?”

“Nothing right now actually,” James says, and Lily sits on the couch with Harry as the three figure out how to vanish a door and turn what’s left into a little raised platform. They send Lily and Harry to get pillows and blankets and a small mattress, and when they come back there’s a hole under the stairs just tall enough for Harry to crawl into.

They put the pillows inside, and Sirius transforms one more time for Harry to curl up on, and Remus reads them a book from the outside while James and Lily make dinner together.

And Godric’s Hollow becomes home.


End file.
